Everything is small in Europe, people seem to have bare minimums.
I suppose it's all about perception.
Edit- it seems like it depends on which quality metrics you use. I used "Stuff", other users choose life expectancy, and vacation time.
"Everything is small", in what sense? Where in Europe?
If you mean: houses are small, yup, it's not common to have sprawling suburbia with rows and rows of single-family houses with a garage, driveway, lawn and backyard. At the same time, these are not necessities, apartments are small but you have plenty of access to public areas such as parks and squares where most people will congregate.
What are your bare minimums? What I notice here is people living much more sustainably compared to the US, consumerism still exists but it's not exacerbated by people buying every kind of gadget and permanently installing or fixing their houses with new stuff. Cars are necessities for people that live far away from the cities and/or have families, the rest can live comfortably without a personal car (and some families I know that live close to the cities depend entirely on car sharing).
It's a very different lifestyle and as an immigrant here, having visited the US and coming from a country very influenced by the American-way-of-life I'd say that it's much much better, even if you can't buy so much shit.
They do get to travel more and pay less for healthcare, but I do not think it is a trade.
Without specifics it's quite hard to judge what you are comparing against.
Now, not everyone in the US does those things; welding is particularly time consuming and expensive, for example, but I think most people I know in the US could take up welding if they really wanted.
But what do you mean with smaller?
Cars are much smaller, both because the infrastructure is not built for large ones and the huge US models are kind of pointless.
There are few large stores and many smaller stores instead. There are not many skyscrapers, in part due to relatively strict building regulations in the big cities.
There are only two really big metropolitan areas: London and Paris.
Also, there might be less of an interest in ostentatiousness. Bigger isn't always better.
That said, the US has a GDP per capita that's almost twice as high as the EU average. And even the most well-off countries, which had almost reached parity, have fallen behind very considerably since the 2008 financial crisis. The US economy has grown a lot since then, while the EU mostly remained stagnant.
(note that GDP/capita is a pretty bad measure, but it gives some idea)
But your points are valid, there's not many large cities, people tend not to have huge homes or sprawling lawns.
Larger income inequality leads to more luxury: expensive cars, bigger mansions, etc.
Case in point: I saw way more luxury cars in Moscow than in New York or London, while large parts of the city are incredibly ugly and poor.
For instance, my salary in a small Swedish city is 45,000Kr/mo. Of which I pay 6,000Kr in rent and about 3,000 for all my other bills combined (including gigabit internet). However there’s an unseen amount that my employer pays; my 45k salary is more like 90k in company costs.
Since the city is small, I would think of this as comparative to somewhere like boulder, CO. So you begin to get an idea of what purchasing power really is here and what things are paid for automatically (like insurances).
There’s also a large differentiation in regards to social norms (25 days vacation by law, income support in the event of unexpected job loss, generous maternity/paternity leave) muddying it even more.
EDIT: This spurred me to do some research and I came across this analysis by Pew research: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/05/through-an-... TL;DR: no matter how you measure, the standard of living is better in the US than in Europe.
If you consider "life" as a bare minimum, we are worse off.